Weylie Hoang: A conversation with YouTube's leading beauty personality

The YouTube fashion and beauty community is leading the way for many young women to become brands and breakout talent. One of the ladies doing that is Weylie Hoang.

Weylie Hoang is a YouTube beauty personality known as “I Like Weylie.” Hoang has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube and her brand continues to grow. She has appeared on a number of beauty and digital panels such as Idea to Screens, Women of YouTube, Spring Forward with the Leading Ladies of Digital Beauty and Playlist Live. A million subscribers is nothing to sneeze at. If you are a regular subscriber of the beauty community on YouTube, there are a lot of questions being asked how these leading ladies were able to grow their channel and their brand.

Weylie shares how she got started and insight to help you grow your channel.

Q: When did you start your channel and what prompted you to start making videos?WH: I started my channel in September 2007 and I was 15 years old. I was bored at the time and I didn’t have anything better to do. I was watching a lot of other beauty videos and it prompted me to start my own.

Q: When you started on YouTube were people pretty positive?WH: When I started there were not a lot of people on YouTube and if they were they were not very interactive. They were a lot shyer at the time. Now it seems much more like a social media platform and an immediate connect. Before people would only comment if they had a question about something. The comments were really few compared to today.

Q: How do you deal with the negative comments and what is your advice to others?WH: At times I do let those negative comments get to me, but for the most part I remind myself that I have to look at this like a career. Just like any job, people are going to disagree with you and people are not going to like 100% of everything that you put out. I keep it in perspective by looking at it very professionally. If someone makes a comment that is negative and I start to take it too personal, I remind myself to look at as my job; that there is always going to be good and bad. If the comments are a little negative I’ll take it into consideration to see maybe if what they’re saying is right and if there is something that I need to reconsider.

Q: When you started your channel and saw that the number of people subscribing to you channel was growing did it surprise or shock you?WH: I can’t say that I was shocked because I didn’t care about views and I didn’t know what it meant when I was younger. I knew that people were watching; I didn’t focus on that or that it was popular. I didn’t know that it was a big deal at the time.

Q: Who is your inspiration for fashion and beauty?WH: I don’t have a particular person that I look to. I do like to look at Pinterest and magazines for styles and trends.

Q: YouTube has changed so much since you first launched your channel. What advice or tips can you share with people who aspire to be a beauty vlogger?WH: You really have to be passionate about it. In this industry you have to be patient about it too, especially when it comes to video editing and filming. You also have to be patient and creative because you’ll lose that patience really quickly. You have to have the time to be creative about what you’re filming.

Q: At 15 when you began on YouTube, what did you think that you wanted to do as a career and is it still the same?WH: When I was younger there was a mix of a lot of things that I wanted to be. I wanted to be a child psychologist, teacher and a carpenter. I had a lot of things that I wanted to do. I also wanted to have my own beauty brand.

Q: You have many 13-17 years who look up to you. What advice do you have for young girls who are still trying to find their way and social media negativity?WH: You really have to learn to not care about what people have to say besides your loved ones. You especially have to do that with people over the internet that hide behind their computer saying mean things to try and break you down or because they are jealous or insecure. Rather than getting mad at those people look at it as part of the job – take the good and the bad. You have to feel a little sad for people that go around bashing others because they are probably very troubled.

Q: Many of the beauty vloggers have become entrepreneurs. Do you have plans in the near future to launch your own beauty product or fashion line?WH: I don’t have that in the works currently, but I would definitely love to launch my own beauty product or fashion line in the future.

Q: What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?WH: I hope that I would still be doing videos, filming YouTube videos and creating content.

Q: What beauty trend are you excited about for Summer 2014?WH: I’m a huge fan of dresses and I’m really into sandals. Because I live in California I’m really into anything that is really laid back. Dresses and sandals are my thing right now. You can get cute pedicures to go with your sandals and dresses.

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Reese Alexander is a TV host and human resources executive known as "The Sassy Suit." She is also a blogger and writer covering fashion, beauty and lifestyles. You’ve seen her on The Style Network, Spike TV, Billboard.com, YouTube, radio and numerous print outlets. She is a member and mentor of Step Up Women’s Network, which is dedicated to connecting and advancing young girls and teens. Reese believes that you can never have too much make up. Her motto: Keep it sassy, classy, but never trashy! Follow her on Twitter @thesassysuit